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July 14, 2010

Imam Rauf and His Wife Reveal Their True Colors

Laura: The putrid imam and his wife who are behind the ground zero mosque initiative refuse to sign a freedom pledge in support of the human rights and religious freedom of former muslims. So much for their claims that this proposed islamic center and mosque is dedicated to inclusiveness, peace and tolerance. But we knew that. Someone needs to inform Mayor Bloomberg who refuses to even meet with 9/11 families and is rapidly pushing this mosque through, public sentiment be damned.

Ground Zero mosque wanna-be developers show their true radical colors
On October 20, 2009, American Society of Muslim Advancement (ASMA) leader Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan, both received a letter from Former Muslims United (FMU) requesting that they each sign the latter’s Freedom Pledge. Neither has yet signed.
Rauf and Khan both claim to be moderate Muslims. Yet they are determined to rip down a 150-year-old wrought iron building — less than 200 feet from Ground Zero — where a piece of jumbo jet fell through its roof on 9/11 after Saudi suicide bombers flew two loaded passenger planes into each of the World Trade Center towers. The fuselage remains in the building to date. In its place, Rauf and Khan want to build a 13-story mosque.
The Cordoba Initiative, an ASMA subsidiary, claims the building will not be a mosque but a “cultural center” open to all. However, ASMA registered itself as a “church” with the Internal Revenue Service — not a cultural institute open to all, according to Guidestar. The building will indeed be a mosque, and open to all only so as to “invite” non-Muslims to Islam. In Malaysia the title of Rauf’s 2004 book What’s Right With Islam, complete with its introduction from Muslim Brotherhood devotee Karen Armstrong, translates to “The Call from the WTC Rubble.” For decades, Rauf and Khan have operated entirely in sync with global Muslim Brotherhood “flexibility” guidelines, which in North America seek to replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic law.

Now there is new evidence that ASMA’s purportedly “moderate” leaders do not support basic human rights for former Muslims: They failed to even acknowledge an October 20, 2009 invitation from Former Muslims United to sign its Freedom Pledge.
FMU initially sent the Freedom Pledge, fully named the “Muslim Pledge for Religious Freedom and Safety from Harm for Former Muslims,” to 59 major Muslim leaders at 24 Muslim organizations in time for them to have it on September 25, 2009 — the day on which, 220 years earlier, the U.S. Congress passed the Bill of Rights. The letters to Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan were sent in a second Oct. 20, 2009 round of invitations that went to 51 Muslim leaders at 26 more organizations, including ASMA, which houses the Cordoba Initiative.
In their request that Muslim leaders sign the Freedom Pledge, FMU executive director Nonie Darwish, and her colleagues Ibn Warraq, Mohammed Asghar, Wafa Sultan, and Amil Imani wrote
“we now pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to achieve for former Muslims their unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We claim these rights as the foundation for our right to freedom from Shariah. We urge you to join us.”
The 878- word Freedom Pledge itself outlines the principles of Islamic law under which apostates from Islam are subject to the death penalty. It notes that the four schools of Sunni Islam — Hanafi, Miliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali — “unanimously agree that a former Muslim male, also known as an apostate, must be executed” and that a woman, at best must be “imprisoned or beaten five times a day until she repents or dies” and at worst, like men executed outright. It then goes on to cite 1978 and 1989 religious rulings — from the Fatwa Council at Al Azhar University, the closest Muslim equivalent to the Vatican, and the Mufti of Lebanon, each, respectively consigning a renegade Muslim to death if they “do not repent.” Perhaps “a misunderstanding on his part may have taken place, and there would thus be an opportunity to rectify it,” intones the Mufti. But he must do so within three days, or die.
“Overwhelmingly, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan … do not honor freedom to choose one’s beliefs as guaranteed under our [U.S.] First Amendment,” said Nonie Darwish in response to their dead silence since October 20, 2009. “That is the only conclusion we can draw” by their failure to acknowledge or sign the Freedom Pledge.
Rauf and Khan nevertheless hope to convince Americans that they think exactly the opposite. On July 6, 2010 at the Chautauqua Institute in New York state, Khan said
“The Quran speaks of humankind as one nation under God. We find that in America,…. The Quran speaks of one creator and the founding document says that everyone is endowed by the creator with inalienable rights.”Continue